Goldman Sachs on Sunday forecast a slightly larger oil surplus in 2026, as supply upgrades in the Americas outweigh Russia’s downgrade and any uptick in global demand outlook.
The U.S. investment bank kept its 2025 Brent/WTI price forecasts unchanged, and projected 2026 averages at $56/$52 a barrel, saying, “Risks to our 2025-2026 price forecast are two-sided but skewed modestly to the upside.”
OPEC+, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and other allies, agreed on Sunday to further raise oil production from October as its leader, Saudi Arabia, pushes to regain market share.
The bloc’s decision to start gradually unwinding the 1.65 million barrels per day (mb/d) of cuts likely primarily reflects that OECD commercial stocks remain low, Goldman Sachs said.
“While a full 1.65 mb/d unwind is plausible, we assume the group will leverage its flexibility to pause quota increases from January 2026 under our assumption that OECD commercial stocks start rising noticeably in 2025 Q4,” it added.
“Although we revise up our 2026 surplus to 1.9 mb/d (vs. 1.7 mb/d prior), we assume only slightly faster OECD commercial stocks builds in Q4 2025- Q4 2026.”
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy and Christopher Cushing)